AMD’s 5 GHz Turbo CPU in Retail: The FX-9590 and ASRock 990FX Extreme9 Review
by Ian Cutress on August 9, 2014 8:00 AM ESTCPU Benchmarks: Comparing the AMD FX-9590
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, both Intel and AMD, can cause concern during environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement an OS-level unique high performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.
It is worth noting that the FX-9590, against the A10-7850K for example, has double the threads and +1 GHz of core speed, despite the generational gap. Considering only these factors, the FX-9590 is most likely similar if not better at single threaded performance, but also 2x for multithreaded results.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
The eight threads of the FX-9590 give it almost another third of performance over the A10-7850K for small frame videos and nearly 2x for the larger frame conversion.
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
The FX-9590 puts in the best AMD CPU performance, similar to that of the i5-2500K.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
The FX-9590 beats almost everything pre-Haswell, showing the strength of a 5.0 GHz turbo mode. Note that it compares to the 3.5 GHz, 4MB L3 cache Haswell, which is 1.5 GHz slower and has half the L3.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
PCMark8 v2 OpenCL on R7 240
A new addition to our CPU testing suite is PCMark8 v2, where we test the Work 2.0 and Creative 3.0 suites in OpenCL mode.
Hybrid x265
Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.
The FX-9590 holds up very well in the Hybrid x265 conversion, which makes me wonder how well an 8-thread Kaveri CPU would perform.
Cinebench R15
The FX-9590 still has the single thread edge over the newer AMD CPUs due to the high frequency, but is easily overtaken by the modern cheap Intel CPUs. For multithreaded competition, the 8 threads needs an 8 threaded Intel CPU to compete.
3D Particle Movement
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
Although the FX-9590 again performs as the best AMD CPU, the floating point nature of the calculations in this test seems not to be favored by this architecture.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.9
FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and results are given in seconds.
Similarly to 3DPM, for basic photo conversion any base 3.2 GHz Haswell CPU can outperform a 5.0 GHz AMD.
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Budburnicus - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link
Umm, it is QUITE possible to get a SandyBridge to 5 GHz, in fact I have my i7-2600K rock stable at 4.7 GHz (where my Haswell i7-5930k is 4.4) - and it TOTALLY SPANKS this POS FX 9590! Less power, same clock speed, MUCH higher performance!AT is being TOO EASY on AMD, not too harsh! This CPU is not a "win" in any sense!
bebimbap - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
No matter what any one that loves this FX-9590 says, this processor is just an exercise in gluttony, and devolution.I have been spoiled by computer evolution. coming from the commodore/Macintosh/SX286 days. you appreciate a few things. such as noise/heat/size reduction of modern systems.
50-80w cpus are quiet, compared to the pentium4 days.... or Hairdryer days...
SSDs are silent,
modern HDDs are basically silent, compared to 40MB drives and 3.5/5.25 floppies and don't forget the stack of floppies you had in the drawer instead of a single USB stick.
modern gpus not oc'd are quiet, still remember the hiss of my gforce3Ti
CRTs - actually have a noise when you turn them on, some buzz when in use... and don't forget the size.
case- you either had a monster of a case that would break your table if you put it on it, or a fugly thing that you wanted to hide under the table.
overall the heat produced compared to a 19" crt + pentium4/thoroughbred + 9800XT compared to a modern system also let you get rid of the window AC unit reducing a lot of noise.
so i am spoiled because i can now have a system where i'm not sweating like a pig and going deaf while playing my favorite game or browsing the web. I don't need a 1000w speaker system to hear the gunshots clearly over my cpu/gpu/psu fans or window AC unit.
I no longer need a computer be a 4in1 device that acts as a heater, a LOUD white noise generator, an air filter, and computer. It should be similar to a BMW-M5, everyday comfort and driveability but grunt when you want it, but of course with better fuel economy.
Leyawiin - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
This article makes me feel good about the FX-6300 @ 4.5 Ghz I have. At least with the games they chose to benchmark I'm doing fine.siberus - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Any chance we could get some testing with radeon gpu's using mantle ? :) would be pretty neat to see how some of the older/lower tiered cpu's break down. Unless you guys have done something like that already in another article then I apologize for asking.monstercameron - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
this cpu just chew through integer workloads, faster than a 4770k, where it fails is every thing else. I reckon a well optimized program written directly[fma?] for it would haul ass!resination - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
This is THE processor for the "rolling coal" set.CSammy - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Pathetic. The cover might as well be Intel pissing on this AMD processor, because that is quite literally the truth in nearly every single aspect.TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
Note that there is no recent Devil's Canyon Core i7-4790K here - this one, being around 13% faster than i7-4770K in CPU-bound tasks, would make the FX to look even less relevant.TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
"AMD clearly does care about the performance market"yeah, thats why they couldnt even be bothered to use the new kaveri cores, instead rehashing an old piledriver cpu with higher clocks and a TDP that puts netburst to shame. all the while, performing sligtly slower then a intel cpu with a third the tdp and running 1.5 GHz slower.
They care about the performance market so much, that they put this chip on the 3 year old AM3+ platform, rather than the new FM2+ platform, just so we can use old chipsets with feature sets from 2011.
And it costs as much as a core i7.
CLEARLY, AMD still cares about the performance market.
TiGr1982 - Saturday, August 9, 2014 - link
I perfectly understand your sarcasm :)I guess, it was something like that: AMD did not and does not have the resources and/or desire to invest into pure many-module CPUs beyond Piledriver FX CPU. So, from the engineering standpoint, they stopped there.
But then the marketing stepped in and said: "We need a faster CPU to brag. Because we aren't developing a new one, can you boost the current one?" And the engineering team said "Yes... Okay...". And they did. :)